Heart Beats
by periberi
Summary: Yuuki Cross lives. For a different purpose, for a different war. oneshot, Zero/Yuuki


**Title**: Heart Beats

**Fandom**: Vampire Knight

**Pairing**: Zero/Yuuki

**Rating**: PG

**Summary**: Yuuki Cross lives. For a different purpose, for a different war. Zero/Yuuki

**A/N**: Thank you, julye-twin for the plot bunny. I hope I did it justice. And thank you froz dudes, for forcing me to do this. Just kidding. This is for you. And to all the hopeless, and still hopeful Zeki fans.

The heart is the central organ of the body. It is composed of a cardiac muscle, found only within the organ. It weighs two hundred fifty grams on average. The average human heart beats at seventy-two times per minute, and in a span of lifetime of sixty six years, it accumulates an approximation of 2.5 billion beats.

The heartbeats—she could hear them amplified even in a meter distance. It was driving her crazy, all the while wishing that the heart had a language humans could understand; if only heartbeats were words then she would probably know. She would probably not speak. They could have understood.

Yuuki Cross continued to stare at the distance; in the light of the fire, in the flapped covers of the tent, in the dirty pile of clothes, at the futon, _anything_ but at the man who held the Bloody Rose perfectly in his hands. The metal gun was created to mold in his grasp, not the other way around. He was wiping the sides of the gun very carefully like it brought him life; the metal so much shone into the darkness as if it was the sun and the fire--the fire was only the moon and it gets its light from the sun.

Zero Kiryuu had come inside the tent not so long ago; and he came to her not to save her, not to save him. Yuuki thought their world was fated to become a world of converging fantasies, a many-act play; they take roles, different roles at once, and they act on it too well. Not too long ago, she was a sister and he was a brother. They became friends. They became guardians. She was a vampire princess, he was a vampire hunter. Then they were enemies. And now she was captive, and he was her captor.

He did not dare to look at her when he came. He probably thought she was disgusting; clothed in a ceremonial bridal dress, splattered with Kuran Kaname's blood all over the white fabric. It was a bloody sight, her marriage, her supposed marriage. Yuuki clutched the fabric in her chest in pain; she was tired to think and move. She hoped it would be over soon.

"Why don't you run away?"

At the first quake of his voice, her tears threatened to fall. It has been _too long_, too long since he last heard him. It has been too _achingly_ long since he last saw him. Their farewell was a bittersweet memory, and it ended with her in tears. With the way that she was crying openly in the darkness, she felt that she made their farewell stretch for so long, so long, that up until now she was holding into him and his goodbye.

Yuuki finally found her voice.

"I'm not afraid of you."

She could swear she heard Zero snicker; he could have smirked. He could have even laughed. He stood up and closed a few distances between them; the heartbeats became annoyingly loud in her ears. It only dawned on her now, how much things between them have changed. It hurt her more in this moment than when it only existed in her memories. She even wished that the memories they shared were the ones her mother protected her from; not her childhood, not _that_ pain. It was nothing compared to what she was feeling in the stretching of eternity of being scrutinized under his gaze, the silent clacking of the gun in his hands, the sound of the fabric in his movements, the pain of being _this_ close to him. It was unrecognizable.

"You did not forget, Yuuki." He crouched in front of her.

"I don't, and you can kill me now."

And then Yuuki Cross laughed. She was a broken doll; tattered clothes, crying eyes, laughing lips. Her hair was disheveled, her arms in her chest. Zero caught her hair in his free hand and brought her face closer to his. Yet, she did not stop from laughing, until the knowing of joy, fear, pain, agony and nonchalance mixed in the salty river of her tears; it left tracks in her face that shimmered in the darkness. Her hair hurts so much in the gentleness of his grasp, yet she did not stop from laughing.

Her voice crackled from the laughter.

"…You can't kill me Zero."

All the merriness stopped. He still held her in his hands and she held his eyes in hers. For a moment, their pause was only that of heart beats, and gods thought it to be perfect—the way so suddenly, so long, she understood him as if heartbeats were words.

"You can't kill me Zero. I'm your last resolve to live. If I live, you do the same; if I die, you die. It was our promise, and I did not forget. I _remembered_," said the princess to her _knight_.

And she was right; the way his hands crept up to the side of her thighs, she was right. She knew she was right when they held each other's gazes. And when he casted her hands, her only protection, away from his act, she knew she was right. The whole thing felt right; with her weight crushed beneath him, making the unforgivable more so unforgivable. She was right all along.

The Bloody Rose was forgotten somewhere; his hands went to her sides, gently to her shoulders, into her collarbone. Zero had a distinct smell and it was making her dizzy, the ticklish movements of his hands in his branding and _that_ distinct smell of a predator gnawing upon his prey. Whatever it was that they were doing, it made her weak, and unknowingly she held on to his back, and sighed. She was embracing her enemy; she felt his muscles tense and relax and his spine collapse and stretch and with his breath in her ear, they were engaging in the beauty of perpetual _war_.

His fangs protruded, she felt the tips in her neck and suddenly the intimacy became all too familiar—a pattern too hard to resist. Only now she knew the difference, because it was not just a mere act of drinking someone else's blood; she knew that Zero would drain her dry, to the bones, to the soul like he always did, because love is all about her giving and now he would do the taking and she would allow herself to be drained only _for him_.

His hands went up the inside of her thighs and his other hand was supporting her head; her hands clinging in him too tight. He licked the creamy flesh under her ear, trailed down into her neck; they both heaved a sigh and then she turned away.

"..Don't."

It was a whisper, not to stop him but to provoke. The heart beats grew loud and Zero withdrew his hand from her head to take the bodice off near her left breast. He took away almost too much, but no so that all of her flesh were exposed to him; nevertheless she felt powerless and naked under his gaze. And then he bit her.

So this was what love is all about. It was him taking and her giving and her allowing herself to be drained only for him. He was threading a familiar place in her body and he was doing a familiar act; he knew this all too well, opening up her heart to him, closing it for him, and opening it all over again for him—not to give only her blood, not only her soul but even her love. He was draining her dry; and this is the familiar death they both knew about. He was draining her dry; and this was them—remembering their promise.

A strangled cry caught in her lips from the pleasure and the pain of knowing death in his arms.

Yuuki Cross _died_.

The heart is the central organ of the body. It is composed of a cardiac muscle, found only within the organ. It weighs two hundred fifty grams on average. The average human heart beats at seventy-two times per minute, and in a span of lifetime of sixty six years, it accumulates an approximation of 2.5 billion beats.

A heartbeat—it woke her up. And for a different purpose, for a different war, Yuuki Cross lives.

~end

**A/N2**: Dudes, where is that Zero Special they promised? I want my man back. I want to drool over his sexiness again. His hotness. His everything. I want Zero back! Who's with me?!


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